


new worldly possessions

by Aesir



Series: five years [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Cousin Incest, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and skinny dipping, domestic flangst, enough sap to fill a tree, sweeping declarations of love and loyalty and other insufferable emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 20:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15179180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesir/pseuds/Aesir
Summary: “You should eat something,” T’Challa said, voice echoing strangely in the silent crypt. He didn't saywe should leave; it has been hours,not when five years ago he himself would have held vigil by his own father’s tomb for a night and day if not for the Challenge.





	new worldly possessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ben_jaded](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ben_jaded/gifts).



> dedicated to the lovely ben_jaded, who wanted to see more of these two in this ‘verse! <3

Walking through the underground catacombs was like walking through another world—a city of the dead, untouched by the summer above. It would have been peaceful if not for what T’Challa was here for, and T’Challa went on down and down the ancient corridors until he turned into one room and found it: Erik, sitting hunched on a bench by the far wall, staring into nothing.  
  
T’Challa stood still at the entranceway of the crypt, and then he walked in past the rows of ancestors until he reached the steps of the newest tomb. Like the others it jutted up from a circular depression in the ground. A heavy stone block presented the body laid out on top in its new vibranium sheath, gleaming even in the limited light. T’Challa looked down.  
  
N'Jobu face, more whole and peaceful carved in vibranium than the flesh underneath could have been, stared back up at him. It looked cold.  
  
T’Challa looked at his uncle for a minute longer, a lump in his throat, before he turned to face Erik’s bleak expression; he laid a hand on Erik’s shoulder, and then sat on the cool stone bench beside him. Their thighs were touching. Erik was the only other warm thing in the room.  
  
“You should eat something,” T’Challa said, voice echoing strangely in the silent crypt. He didn't say _we should leave; it has been hours,_ not when five years ago he himself would have held vigil by his own father’s tomb for a night and day if not for the Challenge.  
  
T'Challa watched Erik's fists tighten and his wet jaw clench around all the things Erik wanted to snap back at him. “Didn’t think I been down here that long,” Erik muttered finally.  
  
“You have been with him since they finished interring him,” T’Challa said, carefully neutral.  
  
He put his upturned hand on his knee. For a long second he thought Erik wasn’t going to move, but then a warm hand was sliding over his. T’Challa laced their fingers together.  
  
“I could eat,” Erik said.

 -

The catacombs sealed shut behind them with the yellow shimmer of the shield going up. Erik’s shoulders seemed to crawl higher with every stair they climbed out and into the blast of muggy summer heat. Tension was racketing up in his body.

“Would you like to spar after we have lunch?” T’Challa asked, but he knew it was the wrong thing to say even before Erik stopped on the staircase to throw T’Challa a scathing look.  
  
“You think I need to beat you so I can feel better about myself?”  
  
“No, I—” T’Challa stopped and grimaced. “That was ill-spoken of me. I'm sorry.”  
  
“I don't need anything right now, okay?” Erik turned away again and started up the staircase again. “I'm good. I just wanna eat.”  
  
“All right,” T’Challa said, and because bullheadedness seemed to be a family trait, he jogged up the rest of the stairs so he could walk side-by-side with Erik into the blinding sunlight of the gardens and ventured, “Maybe we can eat outside. The day is not too hot—”  
  
“The fuck it’s not.”  
  
“—and it might be nice to take our lunch in the garden,” T’Challa finished determinedly.  
  
They walked in silence for a little while longer, sweat prickling at the nape of T’Challa’s neck where the sun beat down the hardest. Then Erik spoke. “Not here. And not in the city either. I know a spot we can go,” Erik said, glancing at him sidelong. “It's all the way in the forest.”  
  
“I am not afraid of a walk,” T’Challa said, and felt the muscles in his shoulders loosen when Erik snorted quietly.  
  
It was lunchtime by the time they reached the kitchens, so therefore chaos: the noise level dropped only for a second when Erik and T’Challa walked in, and picked up again even as Erik strode past the blazing open stone fires towards the back pantries. T’Challa snagged a wide basket from its hook on his way, and together, they packed simply: fruits and flatbread, insulated bottles of cold milk and juice.  
  
When they went back into the bustling kitchen, Seble had wandered from her counter and was waiting for them at the entranceway. The old cook had a linen-wrapped bundle in her hands and a thick blue blanket draped over her arm. She gestured them over, and when they went to her she unfolded the linen to show them: samboosas, Erik’s favorite. Erik stared down at the perfect golden triangles, and then up at her again as she wrapped them back in the cloth.  
  
T’Challa took the bundle and blanket from Seble and put them into the basket, busying his hands: pretending not to watch as Seble put a wrinkled, work-worn hand on Erik’s arm. She craned up to say something in his ear, and then she kissed his cheek and went back to her counter.  
  
Erik stood frozen for a long moment, and then he seemed to shake himself. “You set?” he said.  
  
“Lead the way,” T'Challa said.  
  
He let Erik take them into the back gardens, past the transporters hovering in their docking bays. They pushed the hoverbikes out of the smaller garage. It made sense to use them if they were going to navigate through the narrower paths in the forests, but T’Challa knew it was more than that: it was freedom from the small transporter cabin, freedom to not have to struggle to find something safe to talk about, or at least until they arrived. T’Challa grimly shoved down the part of him that was pathetically grateful he didn't need to think of all the things he needed to say yet, and packed the basket into the bike’s tiny hold.  
  
Erik was already seated and was watching him with impatience. As soon as T’Challa climbed onto his bike, Erik’s was revving and tearing down the dirt path; T’Challa scrambled to follow.  
  
Erik had worked a little on their hoverbikes in his spare time and now they ran smoother, faster, and quieter than they had even fresh out of production. The luxurious hum of the bike between T’Challa’s thighs was distracting as they whipped past the tall green trees, but as they flew deeper into the forest, T’Challa’s world narrowed: down to the beams of clear sunlight darting down in blinding patches through the thick canopy overhead, the trees in the way of the thinning paths and Erik just ahead, his tense back bent over the handles.  
  
Erik didn’t say where he wanted to take them; he didn’t need to. After a few minutes of riding, T’Challa knew where they were going. He’d trodden down these same trails a hundred thousand times as a child, but when the trees parted ahead into the raised clearing, he was struck all over again by the beauty of the enclave like it was the first time. The small falls ran into a cavernous swimming hole shaped like an enormous cracked bowl embedded deep into the rocky ground, clear water flowing out of the crack in another falls leading away into a thick snaking stream. The pale rock walls were high and wet, giving them an appearance like glazed ceramic. When they got off their bikes and neared the swimming hole, they had to crane their heads far over the edge of the bowl to see the deep waters, which were a shade of brilliant blue T’Challa had only ever seen in stained glass outside of Wakanda. The mist surrounding the falls beaded on T’Challa’s face, cooling him.  
  
He’d come here all the time when he was a boy, but he hadn't visited in years—not since Nakia and he had swam here together for the last time that summer before she left Wakanda to begin her training overseas, and his duties as prince had taken him away, too. It was quiet all around them, no sounds of the city or the palace, no voices or machinery, no talon fighters flying overhead. Just the dull roar of the falling water and the buzzing insects and the hum of life all around them in the thick green forest. T'Challa stared at the water, feeling the old familiarity and memories overlay the reality in front of him like a cloak.  
  
“I’m hungry,” Erik said, and T'Challa jerked back to himself. Erik was tugging his damp shirt over his head and laying it out over the same rock T’Challa used to sunbathe on. His scarred shoulders and back were lightly sheened with sweat. “You hungry too?”  
  
“Yes,” T’Challa said, and he was; he was starving.  
  
They took out the basket and blanket each and slung them over their arms to begin the slippery climb down the side of the bowl. The rocks were slick and dug sharply into T’Challa’s palms, but he’d had a whole childhood’s worth of time of getting used to this particular pain, and the wide alcove with its ledge jutting out at the edge of the water was just underneath him. Moss and grass formed a thick springy pad under T’Challa’s feet when he leapt the last fifteen feet; next to him Erik stumbled his own landing with a cut-off grunt.  
  
“Show off,” Erik muttered, and T’Challa grinned down at the blanket as he shook it out over the ledge.  
  
The grotto was cool and cave-like, sheltering them from the sun. They sat and ate in the shade, the food good and still hot; the samboosas were crisp and wheat-golden and stuffed to bursting on the inside with fragrant onions and tender spiced meats. T’Challa wanted to wolf them all down, but he ate slowly to preserve most of them for Erik, and contented himself to chase the crumbs on his hands.  
  
Erik ate like he was distracted: staring out at the pool of blue, the falls, the slick rocks, only occasionally reaching into the basket for more strips of injera or pieces of fruit. T’Challa was brushing a crumb from the corner of his mouth and licking it off his thumb when Erik spoke. “I come here sometimes when I wanna get out of my head,” Erik said, muted over the roar of the falls.  
  
“This is a good place for it,” T’Challa said, dusting off his fingers. He leaned back on his hands with a sigh, head tipping back so he could stare up at the clear blue sky and the sparse clouds above. “When I was a boy, I used to swim here all the time. It was my favorite place in the summer.”  
  
He’d expected for Erik to turn and glare at him, but T’Challa only blinked back at him: _what?_ “Oh, so you been holding out on me, huh?” Erik said accusingly. “How many places like this you got tucked away that you haven't told me about?”  
  
“I haven’t been here in many years,” T’Challa laughed, “but if you like, I can give you a full tour of my childhood later,” and only after a second did he realize how that might sound to Erik today. He swore at himself extensively as a muscle under Erik’s eye ticked and his face shut down.  
  
Erik stared out at the water again. “Yeah, okay,” he said, after an agonizingly long pause.  
  
“I’m sorry,” T’Challa said. “I did not mean—”  
  
“I know what you meant,” Erik said shortly.  
  
“All right,” T'Challa said.  
  
“You don’t gotta act like I’m made of glass.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Stop _agreeing_ with me,” Erik snapped, glaring again in real irritation. “You already let me lead you all over the place today.”  
  
“Of course,” T'Challa said agreeably, fighting down the beginnings of a smile. Erik must have sensed it anyway, because he reached over and thumped T'Challa's shoulder.  
  
“Unnatural,” Erik muttered.  
  
The tension broke a little, but Erik still looked stiff and unwelcoming. Interring his father today had scraped him raw, and despite his protestations he still felt to T’Challa like something jagged and brittle, just as liable to snap and hurt himself as well as T’Challa. Still, if Erik did not want to be touched, he would tell T’Challa so. T’Challa shifted over on the blanket until their shoulders were brushing, and then he rubbed his hand over Erik’s thigh, warming him. After a minute of this the tense muscle gradually uncoiled under his palm.

“Do you want to talk?” T’Challa said, because he had learned that sometimes he needed to ask Erik that so that Erik could figure out if he did want to. Evidently he did, because Erik started, “I didn’t want the whole ceremony, but I—” and then he stopped, jaw working.  
  
“You can still see him, if that is what you want,” T’Challa said, after a pause. “Ceremony is not strictly necessary to visit the ancestral plane.”  
  
“Yeah,” Erik said. “I know. But I ain’t ready for that yet.”  
  
T’Challa didn’t answer. Privately, he thought Erik was capable of anything, but he could not say so when he himself still had not gone to see his father since—the first time he and Erik had fought.  
  
“I know Pops wanted to go home,” Erik said. “But Wakanda wasn’t his only home. He chose his people back in Oakland in the end, too—he _died_ for it. I can’t think it was all okay to take him away from that.”  
  
“You made a hard decision,” T’Challa said, and met Erik’s critical stare head-on. “You _did_. But I think you made the right one. Without the proper rites, his soul would have been—”  
  
“—Lost, I know,” Erik muttered. “‘Least this way he ain’t stuck in that fucking apartment.”  
  
“Yes,” T’Challa said, and swallowed around the hard lump that had forced itself into his throat: even if N’Jobu had joined the rest of his family, T’Challa still didn’t know how what would happen to him—would he be received amongst their ancestors as a traitor, a murderer? As a lost son of Wakanda, finally returned home? Would T’Chaka want to—but T’Challa shut down that thought as quick as it came.  
  
Erik picked up a pebble and tried to skim it across the rippling surface of the water; it skipped once and then plunked in, sinking. He chose another, but instead of throwing it, he held on, thumb worrying over the smooth surface over and over, forehead creased. Like this, in the shadow of the enclave, the lines of old grief and anger in Erik’s face looked deep, carved in.  
  
“I thought about it all day.” Erik hefted the pebble. “You know. All that shit I did for him before I came to Wakanda. All the things I did after.”  
  
“You were not in a good place—”  
  
“Don’t you start that shit again,” Erik interrupted curtly. “I know you think that way. _You_ think that way.” He threw the pebble into the pool.  
  
T’Challa waited for him to continue, his own heart thrumming hot in his chest. Haltingly, Erik said, “That time feels like the one point in my life I—the _one time_ I had a purpose that made complete sense to me. The one time I had no doubts or regrets about what I was doing. And maybe you think that purpose wasn’t good, but it was _still—something_ I wanted to believe in, and now I’m—” Erik cut himself off and shook his head sharply.  
  
“You miss that certainty,” T’Challa said quietly. “It’s not the same now.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe in the good we’re doing out there the same way.”  
  
_Sometimes I don’t know what I’m still doing here._ T’Challa could hear it ringing in his head as clearly as if Erik had said it aloud. T’Challa bit at his lip over the million things he wanted to say in response and jerked his gaze away, stung. He let the silence between them stretch forward until T’Challa couldn’t bear it any longer.  
  
“I will not speak down to you as if I know what lies ahead for us and Wakanda any better than you do,” T’Challa said. Erik’s head lifted fast and he stared at T’Challa; T’Challa wrestled his face back into a mask of calm he wasn’t feeling. “And I cannot tell you what is best for you, or what is right or wrong. We are both struggling to believe in something. I will only say that I am glad you are here to struggle by my side, and that what you believe in is not killing you any longer.”  
  
The falls rushing down into the clear blue water was loud, suddenly, echoing off the walls of their enclave. When it didn’t look like Erik was going to respond, T’Challa braced himself against the slick wall of the alcove and climbed to his feet.  
  
“We should swim,” T’Challa said. “It would be a waste if we didn’t enjoy the water.”  
  
Erik kept silent and frozen while T'Challa undressed, but after a moment he thawed enough to get up and start slowly taking off his own clothes. T’Challa left his shirt and trousers behind in a heap and walked forward until the water was lapping at his toes, the ledge dropping off into the bowl.  
  
The water was runoff from the mountains, but it had traveled far through the shaded jungle heat to get here and was just icy instead of frigid; still, T’Challa shivered violently as he lowered himself into the water, wading out. When he looked down he could see all the way to the deep blue bottom of the bowl far below him, the water clear enough that it seemed like nothing was holding him up. T’Challa felt his stomach swoop.  
  
“Don’t dunk my head,” Erik warned, hovering above him on the ledge. He was bare, toes curled against the edge of the rock, oddly vulnerable. T’Challa let his gaze travel luxuriously from his thighs to Erik’s face, which was twisted in annoyance and unwilling embarrassment by the time T’Challa got to it. T’Challa smiled.

“Eh, I would never,” T’Challa said.  
  
Erik said, “You just stay on that side of the damn pool,” and took a deep breath and took a brave leaping step into the water; still, he yelped with the shock of cold as he dropped in, flailing at the ledge and sending water splashing up towards the blanket.  
  
“I thought you said you had been here before,” T'Challa said, heart cracking under the weight of the fierce affection he had for this man.  
  
“You don't get _used_ to this kind of cold, _fuck_ ,” Erik gritted through chattering teeth, gripping onto the rock. “And you’re souped up. I ain’t got that kind of protection.”  
  
T’Challa briefly rolled his eyes heavenwards and waded over. “Come here.”  
  
“No,” Erik said, but he went contrary to his words and allowed T’Challa pull him in.  
  
T’Challa kissed him until Erik was no longer rigid from the cold and the shivers had subsided. He himself was already used to the water, which now felt pleasantly cold on his skin, which nearly always ran hot with the Herb in him. Erik humored him for a minute longer before he pulled back and let his cheek fall on T’Challa’s shoulder. He sighed gustily as T’Challa chafed his arms warm, breath damp on T’Challa’s neck. It warmed T’Challa that Erik let him do this much, even after all that had happened today and all the reasons Erik had to not let T’Challa.  
  
“Are we doing any actual swimming today or are we just gonna keep paddling here like jackasses,” Erik mumbled. “What was the point of getting in the water.”  
  
“You chose to come here! I thought this was what you wanted,” T’Challa said.  
  
“When the fuck did I say I wanted to swim?”  
  
“It was a logical assumption. You want to get out, you can.”  
  
“You’re warm,” Erik said, but then he sighed and nudged T’Challa away, wading a little ways away for good measure. “Aight, so you wanna race?”  
  
“Not really,” T’Challa said. When Erik sucked his teeth in irritation T’Challa grinned and tipped backwards until he was floating on his back, body half-submerged in the water. It lapped over his chest, his closed eyes, his ears, warping sound and giving it a muted quality. He opened his eyes and stared up at the blue sky, rimmed by the bowl. As his body floated, turning minutely, it seemed like it was the sky that was turning and he was lying still.  
  
“You’re boring as shit.” Erik’s annoyed voice sounded muffled under the water.  
  
“Boring and old,” T’Challa said.  
  
A wave swelled over him and T’Challa’s eyes snapped shut against the water even as it filled his mouth and nose. He came up coughing hard and flailing out blindly until he hit a limb, and then he yanked until Erik capsized, yelping and sputtering.  
  
They tussled in the water, probably splashing the blanket and the basket and all the remaining food until it was beyond saving; still, it was worth it to see Erik grinning again for the first time in what felt like days, an answering lightness bubbling up in T’Challa’s chest. It turned out Erik was even a good swimmer; of course he was trained to be, in the military, but T’Challa was still faster and stronger and caught up to him easily when Erik finally gave up trying to shove T’Challa under the water and just tried to swim away. Erik finally tapped out when T’Challa dragged him into a headlock and threatened to hold him down in the water, gasping and swearing loud enough to echo off the cavernous rock walls.  
  
“Man, I told you not to dunk me,” Erik hissed as they climbed out of the water, shivering again and uncoordinated with the chill.  
  
T’Challa picked up the blanket and was pleased to find it only slightly damp at the edges. He started patting himself dry with the corner. “You dunked me first,” he said.  
  
“Shut up. Hand me that.”  
  
T’Challa handed him the corner and sprawled on the other side of the blanket on his back, nudging the basket away with his foot. He blinked lazily up at the shimmering reflections from the water on the pale rock as Erik did his best to dry his hair.  
  
Erik joined him on the blanket soon after, only he flopped over on his stomach next to T’Challa, limbs sprawling out. His left arm landed painfully on T’Challa’s collarbones, but T’Challa didn’t move to shove him off. Erik was already warming to the summer heat, and his arm was a solid and comfortable weight.  
  
T’Challa let himself drift, skin prickling as the humid air dried him and returned heat to his bones. When he did blink his eyes open he found Erik watching him with sleepy eyes, close to drifting off himself; T’Challa rolled over until they were face to face. The arm over T’Challa’s collarbones slid over and around T’Challa’s neck. Erik used it to tug T’Challa closer until they were breathing in each other’s air.  
  
This close, T’Challa could count every eyelash, every stress line, the flecks of darker brown in Erik’s eyes. He held onto Erik’s waist and leaned in to kiss his cheek, his forehead, his soft mouth, hands sliding up to cup Erik’s face. Erik clutched at the nape of T’Challa’s neck and kissed him back almost fiercely, until it apparently wasn’t enough; T’Challa allowed Erik push him over onto his back so that Erik could cover his body with his own.  
  
T’Challa parted his legs to cradle Erik’s heavy weight in between, Erik’s cock hardening against his thigh. He dug his nails into Erik’s scarred shoulderblades until Erik gasped into his mouth, and from then T’Challa could feel his own cock stirring too, and he arched into it, cock dragging along Erik’s stomach in one long slide.  
  
Erik was looking down at him heavy-lidded, eyebrow raised. “Here?”

“Why not?” T’Challa slid his leg up around Erik’s hip. “We have been in worse places.”

“See,” Erik said, leaning over him again. “Sometimes you say something smart.”

“That’s why they made me King,” T’Challa said, and tilted his head up for his kiss. T’Challa let Erik press him back down on the blanket, which wasn’t thick enough even with the pad of moss to soften the hard rock beneath. They moved against each other slowly, rocking, like they had time to spare, until gradually they were moving more urgently, cocks slickening between them, T’Challa’s hands gripping tighter on Erik’s shoulders and thighs spreading wider until they ached. “You look so good,” Erik said, pulling back. “This all mine?”

T'Challa strained up for another kiss instead of answering aloud, but Erik only humored him for a few seconds before he nudged him back again. “You mine?” he repeated.

“Yes,” T’Challa said, longing and heat welling up in his chest, his throat; Erik might’ve even seen it in his eyes. To cover it, T’Challa clenched his fist around Erik’s locs and tugged. Erik’s head went tipping back. “And you are mine, eh?”  
  
“Yeah,” Erik murmured.  
  
“I want inside of you,” T’Challa said quietly, and then he shook Erik once by his locs again just to watch Erik’s mouth fall open, gold fangs gleaming against his pink tongue. “Is that all right?”  
  
“Okay,” Erik said, dazed eyes shocked wider, pupils swallowing up the brown. “Yes.”  
  
T’Challa leaned up to kiss Erik’s flushed mouth again and sat up enough to reach for his trousers and the little vial he carried in his pocket almost always now; this grotto wasn’t the most inconvenient place they’d ever fucked in, and he’d learned over the years to be prepared. Wanting Erik came to him as naturally as breathing now. Erik rearranged his legs until he had a knee on either side of T’Challa’s hips and pressed his hot cheek to T’Challa’s, waiting, breathing deep.

T’Challa didn’t keep him waiting long. He kissed Erik languorously as he stroked his slicked fingers over Erik’s hole, swallowing Erik’s gasps as he slid them in. Erik’s entire body softened and relaxed, his breaths coming in small pants that were starting to fray as T’Challa fucked his fingers in and out, steady. Erik shuddered above him and his thighs trembled as T’Challa sucked hot kisses against Erik throat, licking at the sweat building there.

“Fuck,” Erik mumbled hoarsely. He rocked a little to fit T’Challa’s fingers deeper inside, clenching tight around him. His skin was still cool from the water, but inside he was scorching. “Fuck, T’Challa."

T’Challa buried his face deeper into the crook of Erik’s neck and rubbed circles around Erik’s prostate, light, moaning at the way Erik seized up and tightened around his fingers and moaned in protest, gripping harder at T’Challa’s shoulders, not enough. Erik ground down on T’Challa’s fingers and his cock twitched in between them. T’Challa put his hand around the base to give it one long soothing stroke, thumbing at the wet sensitive tip.

“Lie back,” T’Challa said. “Lie back on the blanket,” and Erik did, raising himself off of T’Challa’s fingers with a quiet raw sound of loss that made T’Challa fumble to grip the base of his own aching cock. Erik lowered himself on his back, spreading his legs and sliding one foot up so his knee was bent. His inner thighs were slick and his cock was thick and hard and curved against his belly, flushed at the tip, and T’Challa couldn’t look at him without wanting to consume him whole, tenderness and fierce hunger welling in equal measure. T’Challa shifted closer on his knees and bent to kiss Erik. He pulled back enough to fit three fingers roughly back inside.

“No,” Erik moaned, grabbing T’Challa’s wrist. “I want you to—”

“Shh, I know,” but T’Challa only ground his fingers in deeper to the knuckle, watching Erik’s head loll against the blanket, plush mouth opening around silent groans. His grip loosened around T’Challa’s wrist.  
  
“Fuck you.” Erik’s next breath hitched. “You said you wanna fuck me—”

“Be still and silent,” T’Challa said, stretching his fingers apart to test the give. Erik slung an arm over his eyes, teeth gritted.

He gasped as T’Challa thrust his fingers in, clenching up, grinding against T’Challa’s hand greedily enough that T’Challa had to squeeze the base of his cock again, heat flaring bright in his stomach. Erik’s feet shifted up on the blanket fretfully, toes curling; he arched hard as T’Challa rubbed up inside of him, that spot that made him twist his hips, thighs trembling, moans going higher and higher and agonized. “God, fuck, fuck me, you fucki—” Erik’s voice cracked and he yanked his arm away from his face to grab at the blanket, pulling at it with his fists.

When his sounds had taken on the distressed quality that meant he was close, T’Challa said, “Come, come for me," and fucked his fingers in again and again until Erik was crying out and bowing off the blanket, stiff cock jerking untouched. T’Challa let go of his own cock and wrapped his hand around Erik to stroke him as Erik started coming, stomach muscles tightening, grinding on T’Challa’s hand and making breathless desperate noises made louder as they echoed in the enclave. Come spurted over Erik's belly, drooled over T’Challa’s fingers. The abandon with which Erik fucked down on T’Challa, chasing his orgasm, made the wild aching hunger bloom in him until he could hardly bear it any longer.

When T’Challa finally, gingerly slid his fingers out, Erik fell back on the blanket like someone had cut all of his strings. He was shaking finely as T’Challa crawled up his body and lowered himself, covering Erik’s cooler body with his own, come smearing between their stomachs.

“Motherfucker,” Erik groaned. “I should make you beg for it.”

“I can,” T’Challa said, and he really could, just from looking at Erik: his pleasure-slackened face, devoid of any pain or anger or sorrow. “Would you like me to?”

“If you wanna _kill_ me,” Erik said.

“No. But I think I am ready to follow your advice.”

His own aching cock had fallen secondary to the pleasure of working Erik over, but watching Erik succumb to it had been almost unbearable. Erik made a wounded noise against T’Challa’s neck as T’Challa breached him. The hot clutch around his cock made T’Challa grind his forehead against the blanket above Erik’s shoulder, hands stuttering on his waist.

“N’Jadaka,” T’Challa said, shaken even in his own ears. Erik was so hot inside, tight and grasping around his cock, despite T’Challa’s efforts, overstimulated and accepting him anyway. T’Challa ran a hand up and down Erik’s side, gentle over his scars.

They fought or pushed each other in nearly everything else, but in this they were of one mind. Erik let T’Challa pull Erik’s legs over his shoulders, bending him in half, and fuck in and in and in until Erik was arching again, grabbing at T’Challa’s ass to pull him in tighter, closer, face twisted in an expression like pained pleasure. T’Challa knew he wouldn’t have lasted long, but the restless overstimulated movements Erik made underneath him blinded him to anything else but the tight squeeze around his cock and the hot smear of Erik’s panting mouth against his cheek.

“C’mon,” Erik pleaded. “In me, c’mon.” His cock was half-hard against his belly—it hadn’t had the chance to soften—and trapped between them.

“Do you want to,” T’Challa said, but Erik only shook his head and turned his face towards T’Challa’s, seeking; T’Challa kissed his soft mouth, licking until it opened for him, fucking in there too, rolling his hips, slow, hot, aching. When he came, he came shuddering through it with Erik biting his lip and clenching up around him, groaning as T’Challa spent deep in the hot clutch of Erik’s body.

T’Challa nosed at his cheek and kissed him again once, twice, relishing in Erik’s shivery sigh.

He was careful as he pulled out and lowered Erik’s legs from his shoulders, but Erik didn’t so much as wince. His face was wiped blank of all tension, and when he blinked his eyes open again they were dark. T’Challa couldn’t help but to lean down and kiss him again; his heart felt overripe, like a bruised plum. 

“The hell’s going on in that head of yours, King?” Erik mumbled. He hooked a leg over T’Challa’s thigh, stroking down his calf with his foot. “You wanna share with the class?”  
  
“You just want to hear compliments,” T’Challa said, shifting so that he wasn’t crushing anything important of Erik’s.  
  
“Well, yeah,” Erik said.  
  
“You were so sweet,” T’Challa murmured, “so good to me,” and Erik groaned in disgust and grabbed him by the nape of his neck. “Listen, I got about all the romance a man can be reasonably expected to take today,” Erik said. “So if you’re gonna go that way…"

“Keep it to myself?”  

“Yeah,” Erik said, and stretched underneath T’Challa like a cat. “Aight, I got dirt on my ass,” he grumbled. “Get off.”  
  
T'Challa ran a proprietary hand over Erik's ass. “You do not.”  
  
“You bring another blanket or towel or something?”  
  
“No,” T’Challa said dryly. “You said you wanted to eat, not to extend my lunch break by three hours so we could go swimming.”  
  
“Kings always gotta be prepared. How’m I supposed to trust a king that ain’t thinking ahead about the towels.”  
  
“Ah. Finally I see where I have been lacking all along,” T’Challa said, and smiled at Erik’s snort of laughter, lighter and less burdened.

-

They dried off on the ruin of the blanket and packed everything into the basket to make the slow climb up to the bikes. This time T’Challa led them down the long way back to the palace—if he was late by three hours, what was another?—and they skimmed through familiar clearings and hidden pathways that T’Challa as a boy had liked to think only he knew of. Now Erik knew them too.  
  
Erik was quiet, asking few questions and saying even less, but when they stopped their bikes for a third time so T’Challa could point out another cave where W’Kabi and him had once run into an angry boar, Erik spoke.  
  
“Hey, listen, about what I said—”  
  
But that was apparently as far as he could go. Erik swallowed, throat working. T’Challa slid off of his bike and left it hovering behind him to go to Erik. Erik stared at him as T’Challa took hold of his hand.  
  
“I will say this once,” T’Challa said. “I can’t do this without you. No—” he amended, when it looked like Erik was about to protest. “I can, and I don’t want to. I can’t imagine continuing our work without you by my side.”  
  
Erik looked at him for a long time and didn’t speak, hand unmoving in T’Challa’s. “You think so,” Erik said finally, like it was scraped out of him. “But then something happens and you gotta move on anyway.”  
  
“I know that is possible,” T’Challa said, over the lump in his throat. “Just like I know that this—none of this is easy for you. Being here, even after all this time.”  
  
Erik’s mouth tightened. “Not always,” he said. Then he hesitated before saying, “I know you don’t wanna hear it—”  
  
“Who said I don’t want to hear it,” T’Challa burst out, suddenly breathlessly angry; Erik blinked. “It is not in me to turn you away if you need to talk about something—or,” and something in T’Challa’s chest squeezed, “have I ever made you think otherwise?”  
  
“No,” Erik grated out.  
  
“So come to me if you need something.”

Erik gripped T’Challa’s hand, forehead creased. “Sometimes I still think we’re gonna screw this all up, but I do trust you.”

“You are here with me, so I know,” T’Challa said, and leaned in to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> i really wanted to title this “mo family mo problems” but thankfully my higher brain kicked in before i could hit the post button on this thing. the actual title is from “PRIDE” by kendrick lamar. 
> 
> “the city of the dead” is the alternative name for the hall of kings/necropolis (but is also the literal translation of necropolis!). according to the comics and the wiki, the hall of kings is specifically reserved for deceased black panthers, so i thought it would be cool if the royal family had their own special catacombs. the catacombs here are built into the canonical and extensive ancient ruins that run underneath the palace. 
> 
> and to you, as always, thank you so much for reading!!


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